GetUp! has officially launched Censordyne, an ad and website campaign combo to help stop the Government from introducing Internet censorship in Australia. The group hopes to show the ad on Qantas flights in August when politicians are on flights to Canberra as Parliament resumes.
Watch here:
Children’s welfare groups Save the Children and the National Children’s & Youth Law Centre joined GetUp! in the campaign, issuing a joint statement (PDF):
We argue that the tens of millions of dollars that such a scheme will cost should instead be diverted to appropriate child protection authorities and police to prevent the abuse of children, and towards effective community-based education strategies that give children and parents the skills to protect themselves.
Further, PC-level filtering software should be promoted to and provided to parents that wish to protect their children from inappropriate internet content.
The Australian Library and Information Association, Civil Liberties Australia, Liberty Victoria, National Association for the Visual Arts, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, QLD Council for Civil Liberties and Dr Alex Byrne FALIA, University Librarian, UTS, also signed the statement.
Senator Conroy’s office responded, saying GetUp’s campaign misrepresents the Government’s position:
“For its last campaign on the issue, GetUp! falsely claimed that any form of filtering would slow internet speeds by 87 percent,” the statement said.
“Now it resorts to spurious claims about the future expansion of the list of content that may be filtered.
“The Government regards freedom of speech as very important and the Government’s cyber-safety policy is in no way designed to curtail this.”
Restricting the access of Australian Internet users to legal content is certainly an attack on freedom of speech.
With respect to the Internet filtering trial currently underway, IT News today reported that Senator Conroy said it was too early to determine how or if the Government’s policy direction on filtering might shift as a result of the trial. The final report on the trial will likely be available in September.
